"We are the only country in history that ever deliberately changed its ethnic makeup, and history has few examples of 'diversity' creating a stable society." - Richard Lamm, former governor of Colorado

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Families in Turkey accused of forcing young women to take their own lives

Nuran Uca never made it to 61 Aydin Arslan Street. If she had gone to the colourful two-storey building, climbed its narrow stairwell, walked down a corridor and sat in the plump brown armchair that so many other women had used, she might be alive today. There, with counsellors from the Kam-er support group, she could have talked about the "crime" of falling in love with a man she could never marry.

Instead, on June 14 the Kurdish woman succumbed to the phenomenon that is claiming lives in this Kurdish area of south-east Anatolia: she hanged herself in the bathroom of her home.

"She was just 25 but it was especially tragic because both were teachers, educated people," said Remziye Tural at Kam-er, the women's organisation that has become a lifeline in Turkey's poor south-east for those who face death because of a perception of dishonour. "She was modern and wore tight clothes - which is why his family rejected her. She was banned by her parents from seeing or speaking to him, and then they stopped her leaving the house. In the end the pressure was too much."

Despite the searing heat, Ms Tural is dressed for work in a pink T-shirt, combat trousers and boots.

On the streets of Batman, a city with a population of 250,000, an alarming number are harbouring suicidal thoughts, and acting on them.

Across Turkey, men are twice as likely as women to take their own lives, but, defying that trend, more than 300 women in Batman have attempted suicide since 2001. Seven women died in almost identical copy-cat deaths in one month alone.

The rising number of suicides has brought schoolgirls marching in protest to Batman's cemetery crying "stop the violence", a courageous act given the conservative mores in Batman.

"The numbers are increasing," said Ms Tural. "By June this year, 19 had tried to take their lives and most were successful. That's just in Batman. All over, in villages and towns, young girls are committing suicide."

There were those who had jumped into the River Tigris, others who had fallen off rooftops or cut their wrists, and some, like Nuran Uca, who had opted to end their lives abruptly as they were doing chores around the house.

Invariably, survivors said it was their kader, or destiny, to meet such an end.

But women's groups and human rights advocates believe the suicides are tantamount to murder. Stories have emerged of girls as young as 12 being locked in rooms for days with rope, poison or a pistol.

"There's a lot of evidence to suggest that these are, in fact, 'honour killings' passed off as suicides - that these girls are being forced to take their own lives," said Aytekin Sir, a psychiatrist who has studied the practice. There is no evidence that Nuran Uca's family forced their daughter to kill herself.

Last year, Yakin Erturk, a special UN envoy, arrived at the same conclusion, saying "honour suicides" had clearly begun to replace "honour killings", with the deaths increasingly being disguised as accidents.

38 Comments:

Many Turkish women in Europe seem to live a looser version of the same sort of life.

Recent changes to German immigration law are designed to make it harder to bring in wives. This is largely in response to Turkish men living in Germany marrying a nice, submissive wife back in Turkey. Typically she is not educated. She stays at home. Never learns German. She has kids. The kids spend all their time with Mom, so when it is time for school their German language skills are either non-existent or very poor. This is one reason there is constant talk of "integration" -- because this same cycle repeats itself over and over across generations.

It definitely does NOT suck to be a Turkish woman. Making unsubstantiated generalizations based on a media article / narrative is extremely unwise. I myself am a Turkish woman. I come from a highly educated background. I am also a very successful academic and married to a very respectful and supportive Turkish man. And my life (and that of my Turkish friends and family)is nothing near to the theories which have been constructed in previous posts, in fact i'd say its the complete opposite. What I'd like to suggest is that it is all too easy to stereotype all Turkish women under one category based on hearsay or the claims of one particular media report. Lets look at concrete facts, the majority of Turkish women both in Turkey and across different areas of the world do NOT FIT into the 'submissive' 'uneducated' 'stays at home' 'poor language skills' category. I strongly recommend further research on this topic to those who suggest otherwise.

im a brit married to a turk in a small village and i can see how different lives are for turkish women compared to uk but i also see how different the lives are from one neighbour to another. if your family has many brothers for example your freedom may be harder to obtain as they feel its thier job to control your freedom more. but lives all vary. its a big country and there are varying degrees of freedom or lack of it depending on how you want to view it. my english friends would say i lack freedom here but i say i live a different life now to a modern london woman. location can matter i guess but so does each family structure.

You should know more about turkish people before saying that i know that such things happen in turky specialy in the villages but still you shouldn't talk in general about turkish customs plus i believe that what happens in saudi Arabia is worse Open your eyes people and see what's happening for women in the Arab word Un should take a part in that and deffend all women rights all over the world specialy in the arab word Andree Hadchity beirut Lebanon

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